


22nd century survival blues

by mistyheartrbs



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, F/F, Forests, Lexa Lives, Post-Apocalypse, Trust Issues, but not for long
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-12
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-06-09 08:15:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15263211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistyheartrbs/pseuds/mistyheartrbs
Summary: Clarke is alone, until she isn't.





	22nd century survival blues

**Author's Note:**

> usually when i write clexa fics it's in an au where she never died of the bullet in the first place, but then i listened to 21st century survival blues by frank turner and thought "hmm, this is clexa" and the rest just clicked into place

Clarke and Lexa travelled only occasionally. 

("Lexa," you see, was the name Clarke gave to her rifle, because perhaps she was going a little insane here, and she had to ground herself somehow) 

This was mainly because the little scrap of paradise she'd found a few months into the second apocalypse (seriously, she'd been born into the fallout from the first one and now she was a week from twenty years old and straggling through another, what kind of shit luck did she have?) offered the best possible situation. It was green, and the animals _usually_ only had one head. That was more than she could say for anywhere else. 

She radioed Bellamy and Raven and the others, every day, even though logically she knew they couldn't hear her. Logically, she knew there wasn't much of a chance of them coming down, of the Earth ever reaching the level of life it'd had before ALIE, or even before the meltdowns. She thought of this one day, as she often did, chewing on some berries and quietly mourning the loss of a world. Her walking stick - the last tangible connection she had to Lexa, the real Lexa - sat propped up against the rover, seemingly unaware of its former glory interwoven into a Commander's throne. Now it poked through ashen deer poop and sometimes served as a hunting spear. 

"You know," she murmured on this particular day. "I could go around the whole country if I wanted, if I packed enough." Nothing responded, not even the forest, because most of the birds had been wiped out in the blast. Good riddance, really - the extra wings creeped her out. In any case, it made her feel so small and lonely that she hopped down and grabbed her walking stick and Lexa-the-rifle and headed for the woods to clear her mind. The trees stayed green for a few miles, Clarke knew - she'd mapped it out, since there wasn't really anything else to do. It was nearly laughable, really, the irony of it. She'd wished so deeply to owe nothing more to her people, and now she didn't. She was free of their burdens and wars and politics, but there was nobody for her to share it with. 

Nobody at all. 

"I wonder if the fawns are out," she mused, always to herself. A set of light, cautious footprints led away from the area described as "DEER CAVE" on her map. "They should get inside before the storm." Clarke had grown particularly adept at tracking the weather - what else was there to do, after all? That was her answer to most somewhat-meaningless talents acquired after the end of the world. If fabric still existed, she'd probably have taken up knitting. 

Regardless, she continued with her mind traveling a million places at once, peppering in commentary on the state of the trees and the scarce animals when she could. The walking stick plunged into the crackly ground every few seconds, and-

Wait. 

_Crackly._

The ground in Clarke's little haven was soft, comparatively, enough that she'd even tried to plant some seeds. The resulting plants were lumpy and looked highly radioactive, but she knew what that ground felt like. 

She looked up and realized, promptly, that she was back in the wasteland. 

"Oh, _screw me!"_ she shouted, and prior to the meltdowns birds would have flown from the trees at the noise. 

Instead, it was just more silence, and that was far worse. 

"I'm fine," Clarke muttered to herself, turning back in the direction she'd come from. "I can just walk back, okay, I'll be fine," and she would have done just that, if not for the indents in the ground. 

Indents that were most certainly not those of deer, as she might've first thought. 

They led further down through the gray hills, out of Clarke's eyeshot. She sighed and started walking. They were human, no doubt about it. Human - maybe hostile, but maybe not. In any case, company couldn't hurt. A voice in the back of Clarke's mind told her that if the person hadn't made it, she could take their supplies. She cleared the thought away as fast as it came, and tried to clear her mind as she continued walking. 

***

Hours passed, and there was no clear path about the footprints. The person they belonged to wasn't planning on going anywhere in particular, sometimes retracing their steps or walking in circles. It never rained in these parts, so the marks never washed away. Clarke dimly recalled some history lesson on the Ark about astronauts from the old world who'd gone to the moon just because they could, and how their footprints were still there nearly two hundred years later. 

"Is there an astronaut out here?" she called to the barren trees and eerie silence of the dead woods. There wasn't any response, not that she expected one. Still, she couldn't help but feel a little disappointed. She kept walking and walking and walking until the sun went down and really, she thought, she should be getting back to paradise and her rover and the little patches of green that would have to serve as sanctuary for another three years or so, but she couldn't stop, now. Not when the footprints told her she wasn't so alone after all, somehow. Not when she reached the foot of a hill and heard the sound of boots crunching on the ash. 

And then Clarke dropped her rifle and for the first time in one year, seven months, and three days, she was speechless. 

Standing there on the hill was Lexa. 

"Oh my god," Clarke breathed, running forward. She'd heard of people's hearts cracking open, but it had never been so true as in that moment. She wasn't exactly the same - covered in new scars, no longer protected by her armor, a little tired, but oh, she was _Lexa._ There was no doubt at all about that. 

"Clarke." Lexa was on the brink of tears, rushing down to greet her, almost tumbling, and the two women crashed into each other, the earth and the sky colliding like the world was ending. 

(It had ended twice before. Clarke supposed that a third time wouldn't hurt.) 

"H-how . . . how did you . . . you were _dead,_ Lexa." The bullet shot clean through her, leaving a wound in her stomach Clarke could still see. "I saw you die!" The flame atop the Polis tower, too much like a candle for it to be a coincidence. "I saw you in the City of Light!" A promise to hold them off, one last glimpse of her charging at the army. A name - a _face_ that had haunted her for years. "Where _were_ you?" 

"I'm sorry, Clarke." Lexa paused, searching hard for the next words. Clarke wanted to hold her forever, even as she struggled to grab onto some semblance of anger at her for leaving her _alone_ all that time. "Titus did not realize his mistake until he'd already removed the Flame. He sent me to a village miles and miles away - why, I'm not sure, but he pretended I was an orphan in need of help. I played along, waited. Planned my escape. It's not too difficult, to be a ghost." Lexa stopped, flexing her fingers like she'd just noticed they were there. "I suppose I could have stayed there. Everyone was nice enough." 

"Why didn't you?" Lexa had the Commander in her blood - both literally and figuratively - but Clarke had always sensed that she tired of its constant demands, especially near the end. 

_The end._

It wasn't the end, anymore. 

"Praimfaya." It was a simple answer, one that needed no more explanation, but Lexa continued onwards anyway. "I knew I'd be safe, so I grabbed some supplies and headed eastwards." She paused. "I've been searching for months." 

"Lexa," Clarke murmured, and dammit now _she_ was the one about to cry. "Lexa, I thought you were dead." 

"I'm not, I'm not." Lexa held Clarke's face in her hands, held the whole world up like it was nothing. "I won't leave again." 

"Can you promise that?" 

"I can try," and then Lexa kissed her and she still smelled like candles even though Clarke was sure they'd all been destroyed and her lips were chapped but she was smiling through it all and Clarke could just about begin to sob right there. 

"There's a storm on the way." Clarke tensed up as dust filled her nostrils. "I have a little shelter in . . . oh, my God." 

"What?" 

"You haven't seen it yet." Clarke's eyes lit up, and she took Lexa by the hand as they started back for the forest. "Lexa, it's beautiful." Somewhere in the back of her mind she thought that this must be what first dates were like, on the old Earth, filled with this giddiness and excitement. "Hurry!" 

***

The both of them were still in shock, really. How could they not be? Lexa had been dead, and she'd assumed the same of Clarke. 

_(Assumed,_ because some part of her mind that she could never quite squash always wanted to believe that Clarke was too strong for that, that she'd make it through anything, apocalypse be damned)

Regardless, Lexa knew these woods well, or she did before Praimfaya in any case. They all looked the same now, charred to ash. It was depressing in every sense of the word, even to someone such as her. 

"Where are we going?" she asked. Clarke kept her pace up, moving as far ahead as she could while still holding Lexa's hand. 

"Deer Cave," Clarke said, and didn't offer any further explanation. 

***

The storm picked up, just a little, as Clarke and Lexa stepped into paradise. 

"Beautiful, huh?" Clarke murmured. Lexa didn't answer. She was too stunned by it - this _green_ she never thought she'd see again in her lifetime. "I don't know how it survived." 

"It's magnificent." 

"We need to keep going, though." Clarke folded her arms, and the sensation of her hand dropping was enough to send a jolt through Lexa. "Have to make it to Deer Cave." 

It did not take a genius to know something was wrong, but Lexa wasn't sure what that was. 

***

They reached the cave just as the storm picked up, in that convenient way life seemed to go occasionally. 

"There's a family of deer that live deep inside," Clarke explained, still walking a little ahead. They'd both gotten over the initial shock - however much someone even could in this situation - but that meant Clarke's initial relief had subsided into something else. Lexa carefully followed her lead. "It's nice and dry in here. Sometimes I stay the night when the rover gets too lonely." 

"Oh." Lexa didn't miss the way Clarke's voice hitched on _lonely._ "The others - are they alive?" She was still the Commander in some part of her brain - she still tried to be direct. 

"Some of them." Clarke didn't offer any other details. "Here." She plopped down on a section of rock, and Lexa followed suit. Not two seconds later, four deer rushed inside, their spindly legs racing to the back of the cave. "They don't mind me." 

"Oh." 

"I'm waiting until they're older to . . . you know." Clarke shrugged, reclining further into the rock. "Food's scarce around here." 

"It's scarce everywhere." Lexa squeezed her eyes shut, tried not to think of the Polis tower knocked on its side like a child's toy, everyone she'd known dead and gone. Merchants and messengers had told that village as much. Clarke's eyes had that glassy quality about them, that disconnect. Lexa took a deep, shuddering breath. "What's wrong, Clarke?" 

"What do you mean?" 

"You've been distant. Why?"

"B-because you _left_ me, Lexa!" Clarke balled her hands into fists, and the mother deer flinched. Lexa did not. "You left me all alone, and I _know_ it wasn't your fault, but I had to pick up everyone's messes, watch everyone I knew die or go underground or fly into space, and nobody cared. Nobody helped. And I _know_ you didn't mean any harm, but I'm still upset." She curled up into a little ball, and Lexa saw herself all of a sudden, forced into leadership, still just a girl at heart. "Isn't that just _stupid?"_ There was nobody to follow the two of them now, but the weight did not just subside. It hung there, like a phantom thing that seemed unshakeable no matter what they did. A ghost. Lexa knew this well, hated it, and wanted nothing more than to hold Clarke in that minute. 

"I'm so sorry, Clarke," she repeated. 

"You don't have to apologize." Clarke looked down at her feet. "Not your fault." 

"I think the storm's subsiding," Lexa murmured, if only because she couldn't very well say anything else. Besides, it was. 

"I still can't believe you're here." 

"Neither can I." Lexa reached out, tentative, and Clarke held her hand. Outside, the deer approached the sunlight, and it began to filter slowly into the cave, illuminating Clarke's face. Lexa thought, then, that perhaps they would be okay again, one day.

**Author's Note:**

> fight me jason


End file.
